The Goring, a small passenger vessel owned by the respondents, was observed by one of the appellants drifting down a non-tidal stretch of the Thames towards the Reading Bridge. The appellants managed to get a line aboard the vessel and haul it to a vacant mooring. The appellants issued a writ in rem against the Goring endorsed with a claim for salvage services. The first instance Court refused the respondents' application to have the writ set aside on the ground that the admiralty jurisdiction was worldwide and there were no grounds for excluding from salvage services assistance rendered to a vessel in non-tidal waters. On appeal by the respondents, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. The appellants appealed to the House of Lords.
On appeal, two matters were agreed between the parties. First, the Thames above Reading Bridge was not tidal. Second, the appellants' services contained all the classic ingredients necessary to salvage services. The principal question of law which arose in this appeal was whether the Admiralty Court had jurisdiction to award salvage in respect of services to a vessel which were performed in English non-tidal waters in respect of dangers to that vessel arising while the vessel was in such waters.
The appellants claimed that art 1 of the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law Relating to Assistance and Salvage at Sea 1910 (Salvage Convention 1910) gave no support to the view that salvage was confined to tidal waters. It referred to salvage in 'whatever waters the services have been rendered'. Since the United Kingdom was a signatory to this Convention, it should be applied in this case.
The respondents alleged that the Salvage Convention 1910 had never been enacted into English law. Even though substantial parts of it were reflected in English law, others such as art 5 were not. There was an enactment of part of the Convention by ss 6, 7 and 8 of the Maritime Conventions Act 1911 (UK) (the 1911 Act), but the Convention was not enacted in full so as to become part of English law. Accordingly, no reliance could or ought to be placed upon art 1 of the Convention.
Held: Appeal dismissed.
The respondents were right to contend that no provisions giving effect to art 1, or to various other articles of the Salvage Convention 1910 were contained in the 1911 Act. Effect was only given to part of art 6 (relating to apportionment of salvage remuneration), art 10 (relating to the period of limitation for salvage claims), and art 11 (relating to the duty of a master to render assistance to persons in danger at sea) by ss 6, 7 and 8 of the 1911 Act respectively.
The appellants argued that the reason why the 1911 Act contained no provisions giving effect to art 1 and various other articles of the Salvage Convention 1910 was that those articles were already part of the law of the United Kingdom. The difficulty about that argument, however, was that one of the articles of the Convention not given effect to in the 1911 Act was art 5. If the appellants' contention was correct, the inference from the fact that the 1911 Act contained no provision giving effect to art 5 would be that this article was already part of the law of the United Kingdom. Article 5, however, was not in the 1911 Act, nor was it part of the law of the United Kingdom. If the inference suggested could not be drawn in respect of art 5, it was hard to see how it could safely be drawn in respect of art 1. It was moreover to be observed that art 1, involving as it did a seagoing vessel as either the salving or the salved vessel, did not carry the extension of the law of salvage as far as the appellants' case seek to do.
It was also contended by the appellants that, if s 6 of the Admiralty Court Act 1840 (UK) had not extended the cause of action for salvage to services rendered in non-tidal inland waters, s 1(4)(b) of the Administration of Justice Act 1956 (UK) (the 1956 Act), by using the expression 'in relation to all claims, wheresoever arising' had done so.
In examining this contention, regard must be given to various considerations. First, the purpose of ss 1 to 3 of the 1956 Act was to give effect to the Convention for the Unification of certain Rules relating to the Arrest of Seagoing Ships 1952 (Arrest Convention 1952). Article 1 of that Convention contained a list of maritime claims. Article 2 provided that ships could be arrested in respect of those maritime claims but not in respect of any other claims. Article 3 provided for the arrest not only of the ship in respect of which a maritime claim arose, but also of any sister ship, that was to say any ship in the same ownership. The Arrest Convention 1952 was concerned with types of claims rather than with the substantive law of different States applicable to such types of claims. It followed that the 1956 Act, in giving effect to the Arrest Convention 1952, was itself only concerned with types of claims and not with the substantive law applicable to them. That being so, one would not expect the 1956 Act to alter the substantive law relating to any particular type of claim.
Therefore, the legislature did not, by using the expression 'wheresoever arising' in section 1(4)(b) of the 1956 Act, intended to alter the substantive law of salvage in the way contended for by the appellants.
Thus, under English law, the Admiralty Court had no jurisdiction to award salvage for the appellants' claim in respect of assistance to a vessel in non-tidal inland waters.